Coughing fits and congratulations
by Tozz
Summary: Secret Santa gift. How many years between them: six; how many months she'd been on Vesta's farm: thirty-nine; how many days he'd gone without aching at the thought of her: none. Countless cups of tea, a myriad of smiles brighter than he deserved.


**Happy Holidays, Divine Judgment! :)**

Yup, this is a gift fic for Village Square's Secret Santa. I hope it's close to what you wanted, Divine... I did my best at angsty romance, but I tend to write really sappy stuff regardless, so sorry if it's a little too much, hahah.

Anyway, happy holidays to everyone out there! Have a wonderful new year.

x x x

It didn't come as a surprise to Marlin, getting sick on Christmas Eve.

His sickness was cyclical, made up stretches of good health and then bouts of bed-ridden misery. It had been a long time since the illness flared up, long enough to give even him a little hope. Maybe this country air the doctor had recommended was good for something after all, he'd thought.

And then, a few days ago, the coughing started—it always started with the coughing. The kind he couldn't hide, the kind that wracked his whole body. By the second day, the fever had set in, and he knew he'd be useless for a week. He was reaching the end of the most recent attack, but Vesta still insisted he stay in bed instead of going with her and Celia to the Blue Bar like they'd done in years past. Celia hadn't wanted to go without him, but he told them to go—didn't want to be a damper on their holiday, he'd said. His sister was more easily persuaded.

"Just a couple of hours then," Vesta said, eyeing him—or what little could be seen, with all the blankets he'd wrapped around himself. "We'll just pop in, say hello to everyone, and we'll be back before you know it."

Celia placed a cup of tea by his bedside. "Are you sure you don't want us to stay?"

He wriggled in his cocoon until he'd maneuvered himself into a sitting position. Then he squirmed a bit more, worming one arm free from the covers so he could reach out and take the cup. "I'm sure. And thanks. Go have a good time." He smiled at her and then sipped the tea, the tea she'd made just for him. It was so easy to read into her kindness, and so much harder to try to convince himself that it meant nothing, that her kindness was indiscriminate.

Soon they were gone and he retreated back under the blankets. He hated having a fever—it made the back of his head unpleasantly sweaty against the pillows, and yet every inch of exposed skin was hyper-sensitive to the coldness of the room. He turned over, onto his back, his side, the other side, and then onto his back once more, searching fruitlessly for comfort.

If he tilted his head a certain way, he could see out the window, where snow clouded up the panes. How long had it been coming down like that? He must have dozed off since Vesta and Celia left, though he hadn't even noticed. He freed his arm once again to touch the cup. It was icy, even against his cold fingertips.

He let himself think about her. Maybe it was the darkness, the aloneness, the fever, the holiday. But his mind wandered, thoughts full and dripping with much more melodrama than he usually alloted for himself.

He wondered what she was doing right this moment. Jack was there, surely, at the bar. Probably had his arm around her waist, once Vesta had had a few drinks and was too tipsy to admonish them. Marlin never liked that about Jack—he always seemed to stand too close to Celia. It was indecent. Never in front of Vesta, though, what with her wanting Celia to marry that bonehead in the city. But there were other times, around town, Marlin had seen him with her, canoodling. He liked to use funny words in his head, words like "canoodling," for things he found troublesome to think of. It made his problems seem further away, like they could be part of a different language and place and life. It helped him forget that they were very much here and present and known.

But forgetting was a luxury he rarely enjoyed when it came to Celia and Jack and their canoodling. Instead, at times like that, when forgetting became an impossibility, he indulged himself with other remembrances, rummaging through memories and picking out his favorites, and letting his mind stray more and more, not forgetting but ignoring the indiscrimination of her kindness.

Marlin had done all the math, in every different way. How many years between them (six), how many months she'd been on Vesta's farm (thirty-nine), how many days he'd gone without aching at the thought of her (none). Countless cups of tea, a myriad of smiles brighter than he deserved. He'd already done it all, but he went over it again now, the ecstasy, the agony.

He felt like a teenager—no, like a child, a thirty-two-year-old child. But he didn't stop the feeling, encouraged it instead.

Come to think of it, his parents never told him Santa Claus didn't exist. It was something he'd assumed, figured out from common sense and schoolmates. But maybe he'd been wrong, maybe they'd all been wrong. Even if there wasn't a Santa, or a god, there had to be something. What was this damned holiday for, then, if not for a chance on one night out of the year to be a little less miserable?

He might've fallen asleep again, but it felt like only seconds later the front door opened. Though it was quiet, the noise jolted him into trying to sit up, resulting in tangled blankets and thrashing limbs. The room seemed much darker now. He couldn't see anything anymore, save for the square of white where the window was. He gave up and went motionless, waiting for Vesta's loud, drunken voice to fill the room, but with the faint, foolish hope that it might just be Santa after all.

"Sorry if I woke you," came Celia's whisper.

He felt suddenly and intensely aware of just how sweaty he really was. "'Sokay," he mumbled. "I'm awake."

"Do you mind if I turn this lamp on?" He heard the click, but no light came. She gave a little groan of dismay. "That's what I was afraid of. The power's been knocked out…"

He wasn't really listening. He'd finally managed to push the blankets off and sat up properly now. "I thought you might be Santa Claus."

Her shadowy form moved towards his bed, and then he felt her palm against his damp forehead, gone after a moment. "Oh, Marlin. You're burning up."

"Where's Vesta?" He lowered himself back onto the pillows. She went to the kitchen now, but raised her voice so it would carry to where he lay.

"Back at the bar. I saw how bad it was snowing, so I left early." She emerged a minute later. Marlin heard her set something down on a table. "She and the rest of them probably got themselves stuck there, since they didn't want to leave." Her face appeared suddenly, and he saw she was leaning over a burning candle, a wry smile on her face. Then she moved away, set another candle down, lit it. "But I would've come back soon anyway. I didn't think it was good to leave you here when you're so sick—and I can see I was right."

"I'm fine," he answered stubbornly. His croaking voice prevented him from convincing anyone of his supposed fineness. He really was acting childishly now, even with those six years he had over her.

But she didn't argue, only smiled and said, "I'll go make you another cup of tea."

She returned with a fresh steaming cup and went back to lighting more candles, until at least the corner of the room was decently illuminated. They didn't talk while she moved about, and he liked that about her. She was open and friendly and cheerful, but never to the point of idle chatter. Marlin, on the other hand, never had the right words to say, which usually meant saying too little too gruffly.

Celia pulled a chair up to his bed when she'd finished. She had a cup of tea of her own. She smiled at him, one of the biggest and brightest smiles he'd ever seen from her.

"What is it?" he asked, fighting a smile himself, thanks to that infectious effect she had on him. "Why are you looking at me like that?" He coughed, dampening his indignation.

She sighed softly, still smiling. "Nothing."

"It's something."

"It's a secret." She put the cup up to her mouth to drink, giving him a coy look over the rim.

"Fine." She wanted him to ask about it, he could tell, but if he was better at doing what she wanted from him, maybe he'd be in Jack's position right now. "So, how's Jack?"

A shocked look came over her then, like he'd caught her at something. She lowered the cup. "He's fine. Why?"

"Just wondering if he was at the Blue Bar tonight." He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see her expression anymore, the evidence of his uncouthness.

"He was. And he's fine." Then she gave a girlish giggle and changed the subject. "You know Marlin, earlier, when I first came in, you said you thought I might be Santa Claus."

"Yeah, yeah." He kept his eyes closed. "Wishful thinking, I s'pose."

A pause. "Sorry you got sick on Christmas." He heard the pity in her voice.

"I'm all right."

"It'll get better, you know. You won't be like this forever."

"I know. It comes and goes."

"No, I meant… I meant in the long run, with your illness. It'll get better. _You'll_ get better. I've noticed"—amazing how powerful that word is, _noticed_, how special it can make a person feel with absolutely no effort—"that there's longer and longer gaps between the times you get sick. It'll stop altogether one day."

"I don't think it's that simple."

She stayed quiet. He was so used to crumpling up his hope like it was brittle old newspaper, he didn't hesitate to do it to hers. There he went again, gruff and insufficient as always.

Maybe it was time to fix that.

"Celia," he said, propping himself up on his elbows. She rose to her feet when he spoke, like she'd heard something different in his voice. It was vulnerability, too fragile for daylight, and therefore unseen until now. Even in the light of candles, it threatened to scorch and wither, but there was enough shadow to give him courage.

"Do you need something? Did your tea go cold again?" She reached for the cup on the nightstand, and he grabbed her arm to stop her.

"I have to tell you something, Celia."

"What?"

"A secret."

She sat back down in her chair and waited, and he cleared his throat, and cleared his throat once more, and then he coughed, again, again, until he was having a fit. She stood up again, put her hand on his shoulder, rubbed his back when he rolled onto his side, still coughing. Oh, if only she would stop—couldn't she see was making it worse? Not the coughing, but the aching—the ache deep down in his chest, nestled behind his wheezing lungs.

The coughing subsided, but he was spent. Still, he struggled to speak, his words reduced to a pathetic, silly squeak.

"Shh. Don't try to talk right now. Just rest." Her hand was still on his back.

"But I…" he rasped and then stopped, unable to say anything else. His eyes shut.

"I'll tell you my secret, if you want."

He nodded. She took her hand away, finally, and he rolled onto his back.

"It happened just as I left the Blue Bar." He heard the shift in her tone, the way the excitement added buoyancy everything she said, like balloon-encased helium. "Jack followed me out. It was crazy, with all the snow coming down, but he got down on one knee, right on the spot, and… he proposed."

He felt like the blankets had been snatched off his body, but he knew the overwhelming cold came from within. He kept his lids closed tightly to hold the feeling in.

"Oh, can you imagine it, Marlin? On Christmas Eve. Jack asked me to marry him!"

He swallowed, preparing himself to ask her what her answer was. But even if his throat hadn't just been ravaged by coughs, he realized he couldn't ever possibly prepare himself enough. So instead he sighed the word, "Congratulations."

He heard her giggle. "Thank you. I said yes to him, of course. It was the most romantic thing, but we can't tell anyone right now. Not until I can talk to Vesta." She sighed, and, with his eyes still closed, he thought of how she must look. He imagined her staring off into space with a dreamy look, seeing a place he'd never get to go. "She's got her mind set on the arranged marriage, but she likes Jack. I know if I can just sit down and discuss it with her, she'll come around." She paused, and he pictured her smiling then. "But I'd rather keep it to myself right now and enjoy it. Oh, Marlin, I can hardly believe this is happening to me. It's so wonderful."

_Me either,_ he wanted to say. _I can hardly believe this is happening to me. It's so terrible._

The chair creaked then as she stood up and moved towards him. "Oh, your tea_ has_ gone cold. Would you like me to get you some more?"

He kept his eyes closed while she waited for him to answer.

"You fell asleep, didn't you?" she whispered to him playfully when he didn't stir. He heard the quiet scrape of the cup on the table as she picked it up, then footsteps getting fainter as she went into the kitchen, louder as she came back.

He listened as stilly as he could. The room went silent again, and maybe he fell asleep, and maybe he was dreaming, but seconds or hours or moments later he felt a hand on his hair, gently stroking his pillow-flattened curls.

"It's midnight, Marlin," he heard her whisper. "Merry Christmas."

He couldn't bring himself to reply. It took all of his focus and energy to maintain the facade, to keep his eyes shut and his breathing even, pretending to be asleep, pretending to know her kindness was indiscriminate.

x x x


End file.
